May 24, 2011

Democrats move ahead with redistricting plan in House

SPRINGFIELD--Democratic lawmakers moved ahead today with their plans to redraw the state’s legislative boundaries over complaints from a prominent Latino voting rights group that the proposal shortchanges minorities.

Democratic members of the House Redistricting Committee, on a 6-5 partisan vote, endorsed the new boundary lines for the 118 House and 59 Senate districts for the next decade and sent the measure to the full House, where a vote is expected sometime this week. Because they are in control of the House, Senate and governor's office, Democrats can pass the plan by May 31 without any Republican input.

Republicans have been relegated to the sidelines and working with minority groups to explore a potential federal court challenge.

Redistricting is mandated every ten years to comply with population changes documented by the U.S. Census. This year, Democrats are trying to balance the 33 percent growth in the state’s Latino population, in Chicago and the suburbs, against the loss of 200,000 city residents, primarily African Americans.

Democratic leaders created a map that has a combined 39 House and Senate seats with a voting age majority of black or Latino residents. But some Latino groups contend Democrats could create as many as 57 such “majority-minority” districts that that add Latino districts while accommodating African-American concerns.

Representatives for the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund said the plan falls short of the requirements of the federal Voting Rights Act, which prohibits diluting minority voting strength. Meeting the Voting Rights Act is a key element of redistricting.

“We believe that House Bill 3760 does not create a sufficient number of districts for Latino electoral opportunity to comply with the Voting Rights Act,” said Nina Perales, director of litigation for MALDEF. Though she stopped short of threatening a lawsuit, Perales noted MALDEF has a history of going to federal court to challenge Illinois redistricting plans.

“The touchstone is ‘opportunity to elect’ and we have case law here in the (U.S.) 7th Circuit (Court of Appeals) that said that having Hispanic population between 60 and 65 percent in the Chicago area is one way to measure whether or not a district offers electoral opportunity to Latinos,” Perales said.

She noted there are currently six House seats with a 65 percent population of voting-age Latinos now compared to only three in the proposed map.

Attempting to counter MALDEF’s warning and set a legal marker for a potential lawsuit, House Democrats retained Allan Lichtman, a professor of history at American University in Washington and a noted redistricting expert, at a rate of $400 an hour in taxpayer funds.

Lichtman maintained that districts drawn with even a majority of voting age Latinos and blacks vote overwhelmingly in Illinois for Latino and black candidates. Only in one House district, with an 80 percent Latino voting age population, is there a non-Latino representative, Rep. Dan Burke, D-Chicago.

The Democratic map also pits 19 House Republicans against other GOP or Democratic incumbents, including three Republicans in one west suburban district, Republicans said.

Rep. Mike Fortner of West Chicago, the ranking Republican on the redistricting panel, asked Democrats led by House Majority Leader Barbara Flynn Currie of Chicago why so many Republicans had been jammed into districts with other Republicans. Under the map, Fortner would be placed into a district with Rep. Tim Schmitz, R-Aurora.

“I don’t see anything inherently unfair. We had the point made that these districts don’t belong to us individually and… (it’s) not as if somebody owns the district,” said Currie, the sponsor of the map legislation. “Maybe Republicans tend to live in closer proximity to one another than do my colleagues on the Democratic side of the aisle.”

All 50 aldermen on the Chicago City Council had to file paperwork earlier this year detailing their outside income and gifts. The Tribune took that ethics paperwork and posted the information here for you to see. You can search by ward number or alderman's last name.

The Cook County Assessor's office has put together lists of projected median property tax bills for all suburban towns and city neighborhoods. We've posted them for you to get a look at who's paying more and who's paying less.

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